In recent years the supposed English bias of the BBC has been a topic of many Welsh politicans, more recently Labour MP Chris Bryant, who has complained about the English bias with the coverage of the Six Nations rugby. This is not the first time that a politican has comaplained about the BBC either, Plaid Cymru MP, Adam Price and former Labour AM Alun Pugh have both also complained about either the coverage of Wales in the BBC News, or the bias of coverage in favour of England.
The evidence of bias is clear in the "Main" BBC News at both 6 o clock and 10 o clock with news reporting about English policy on health and education, yet they usually have nothing refering to Welsh or Scottish policy on the same issues, then there are the sporting events, where, for most of the time, they talk about the England teams and English players.
This is why the BBC need to "federalise" it's news and sports programming, the BBC is currently run from the South East of England, this is not good enough in the devovled era, especally in regards to media coverage of the Welsh Assembly and descions that are made their effecting the lives of the Welsh people. What needs to be done is that they should scrap the "main" BBC News and instead put "Wales Today" on for an hour, reporting on Welsh news, UK wide news and International news within that hour, that way the news can be more relivent to Wales, rather then having to listen to news about "Paitent in England under new government proposals....."
Of course the "federalised" news should, and would still report on UK wide news, such as the unpleasent stuff they usually go on about in the news (murder, death, etc) and of course on International issues that the "Main" BBC news currently reports on, it is not about isolationism in Wales, it about moving the news into the modern, devovled era of the United Kingdom, and making the news more relivant to peoples lifes in Wales. The BBC must not forget that the licence fee is paid for by everyone in the UK, not just the English who are paying it, and it is about time the BBC truely becomes a British Boardcasting Corproration, and not just one with the occasional nods to Wales, Scotland and N.Ireland.
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2 comments:
Interesting solution to what is becoming ever more obviously the English Broadcasting Corporation.
I often feel that, on issues of health and education, that the EBC is talking about a foreign country because we don't have city academies et al and NHS privatisation in Wales.
It's also plain from comments by Betsan that attempts to educate her London colleagues about Wales go unheard and we're left with the unsatisfactory situation where the Wales Today "regional optout" is insufficient for our needs.
There is much talk in Scotland of a "Scottish Six", we need a Welsh Six to meet our needs.
Agreed, I've stopped watching BBC News at 6 and 10 to be honest, for the reasons stated in my blog and also for the reasons you said in your comment. The news from both BBC and ITV is not adequate for modern Britain, but with the BBC it is paid for by the Licence Fee, and shouldn't have any bias.
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